This day in history...

Just saw a LKF on imdb.com and thought about this post. Here it is: The Brady Bunch went into syndication in September 1975 (so the 45th anniversary was sometime this month). Since then, not a single day has gone by in which an episode did not air somewhere in the world.

 

On September 30, 1949, the Berlin Airlift, having completed more than 250,000 flights in about 15 months, comes to an end. The U.S., Great Britain and France instituted the Airlift on June 26, 1948, days after the Soviet Union blockaded all ground access to the city of Berlin. The Airlift became the only way Berliners would receive every imaginable necessity of life. Case in point; the last aircraft to deliver supplies on 9/30/49 was an American C-54 carrying about two tons of coal.



On September 30, 1954, the US Navy commissions the Nautilus, the first submarine run on nuclear power. The Nautilus is much larger and faster when submerged than any US submarine previously built. In its 25 years of service, it would virtually rewrite the travel record book for submarines. She was decommissioned in 1980, having sailed more than half a million miles during its service. The Nautilus was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1982, is now on display at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT.


On June 24, 1955, 24-year old actor James Dean is killed in a car crash in Cholame, CA, his Porsche Spyder colliding with another vehicle at an intersection. The driver of the other car and a passenger riding with Dean were only slightly injured. Witness reports conflict over who was at fault, and some blamed the late afternoon glare that made visibility very poor at the crash scene. At the time, only one of Dean's movies, East of Eden, had been released; Giant and Rebel Without A Cause would be released a short time later. But he was clearly an up and coming star, and his untimely death lifted him to legendary status in the Hollywood community. His aura got an even bigger boost with the legend that the Porsche in which he died was somehow cursed. After the crash it was cannibalized for parts. The story goes that vehicles that received its engine, transmission, tires and chassis were all involved in later crashes, some fatal.

 

On October 1, 1993, 12-year old Polly Klaas is abducted at knifepoint from her home in Petaluma, California. Investigators eventually trace the kidnapping to Richard Allen Davis, a parolee with a record of multiple offenses including kidnapping and assault. Two months after the kidnapping, Davis confesses and leads authorities to where he had buried Polly's body. He would be convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1996; 24 years later, he remains on San Quentin Prison's death row. Polly's murder eventually led the California legislature to pass a "three strikes" law, mandating a life sentence upon a third felony conviction. Polly's father Mark was an early advocate for passing the law, though he withdrew his support on learning that non-violent felonies would be counted as "strikes."


On October 1, 2017, 64-year old Stephen Paddock, a retiree with no criminal record, barricades himself in a 32nd floor room of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas and begins firing into the crowd attending an open-air country music festival below. Paddock is armed with 23 guns, 12 of which have bump stocks, which allow for a faster rate of fire with semiautomatic weapons. With help from those modifications, Paddock is able to fire more than 1,100 rounds in 10 minutes, killing 58 people and wounding about 800. It takes police an hour to isolate the room from which the assault takes place and then gain entry, where they find Paddock dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. The mass murder reignites the national gun control debate, with some states banning bump stocks as a result.


On October 1, 1980, Rush plays for a crowd of 9,500 at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine. What makes this performance interesting is that it is the last time the trio will perform "Jacob's Ladder" from the Permanent Waves album, until it dusts off the deep track for their R40 (farewell) tour beginning May 8, 2015. (bootleg recording from the 1980 tour)

 

On October 2, 1967, Judge Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as America's first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Marshall served as chief legal counsel to the NAACP throughout the 40's and 50's, authoring much of the organization's strategies for overturning legal segregation, and personally argued the landmark 1954 segregation case Brown v Board of Education before the Supreme Court. Marshall served on SCOTUS for 24 years, retiring due to health issues in 1991. He died in 1993.


On October 2, 1941, the German army launches Operation Typhoon, the push to capture and occupy Moscow. The invading army had been on Russian soil since June, but several generals of the High Command advised Hitler not to authorize Typhoon, fearing the combination of Russia's land mass and severe approaching winter would hamper them as it had Napoleon 130 years before. Hitler does not listen. He also miscalculates the resolve of the Russian population, which begins destroying anything the Germans can find useful as they begin fleeing ahead of the invasion.


On October 2, 1985, Hollywood icon Rock Hudson is the first major American personality to die of AIDS, at age 59. Hudson had been one of Hollywood's leading men in both cinema and television for 30 years, while keeping his gay lifestyle a closely-guarded secret. He had publicly acknowledged his infection with AIDS only 4 months before.

 

On October 3, 1873, the United States military hangs four Native Americans found guilty of murdering Civil War general Edward Canby during the Modoc War in Oregon. He was killed when he entered a Modoc camp under flag of truce the previous April. Canby was the highest ranking military official–and the only general–ever killed by Native Americans. The incident was one of the factors in the army taking a more aggressive stance in dealing with Native American problems on the frontier.


On October 3, 1942, a team of German scientists, headed by Wernher von Braun successfully launch a V-2 missile from an island off Germany’s Baltic coast. It traveled 118 miles. The precursor to the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) of the postwar era, the V-2 would not be armed and launched on an Allied target until September, 1944, when two were fired at Paris. The first of more than 1,100 that would be fired at England before the war's end was launched two days later. With a 200 mile range at 4,000 mph and delivering a one-ton warhead, the Allies had no defense for the V-2, which claimed more than 2,700 British lives in the final year of the war..


On October 3, 1951, New York Giants' third baseman Bobby Thomson's one-out, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning gives the Giants a 5-4 win over the hated rival Brooklyn Dodgers, and an improbable National League pennant. Thomson’s homer wraps up an amazing climb from 13 and half games back of the Dodgers in mid-August. In the Giants' race to the pennant they won 37 of their last 44 games, including 16 in a row, to tie the Dodgers on the last day of the regular season and force a 3-game playoff for the pennant, won by the Giants 2 games to 1. Though the Giants go on to lose the World Series to the Yankees, Thomson’s miraculous homer - soon to be nicknamed The Shot Heard Round the World - remains one of the most memorable moments in sports history.

 

On October 4, 1918, Max von Baden, appointed Chancellor of Germany by Kaiser Wilhelm II just three days earlier, sends a telegraph message to the Wilson Administration requesting an armistice between Germany and the Allied powers in WWI. Wilson, however, distrusted von Baden's assurances that he would move Germany from an imperial state to a more democratic form of government, and the war would continue...


On October 4, 1988, televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges of mail and wire fraud and of conspiring to defraud the public. The case against the founder of Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries and three of his aides exploded in the press when it was revealed that Bakker had a sexual encounter with former church secretary Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room 8 years previously. He then paid Hahn over $350,000 with church funds to remain silent. When the arrangement became public, the scandal helped to bring down the entire PTL ministry. Although the evidence was not particularly strong, Bakker was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 45 years in prison, a sentence later reduced to eight years. Hahn, meanwhile, became an overnight celebrity, writing a tell-all book, posing for Playboy magazine, and becoming a regular guest on the Howard Stern radio show.



On October 4, 1976, Rush plays the The Halifax (Nova Scotia) Forum - a 6,200 capacity sellout - in support of its recently released first live album. The Forum is an old wood structure that, in the words of promoter Keith Brown, "would burn down in 15 minutes if it ever caught fire" - which it did, thanks to a sparkler thrown on top of the suspended scoreboard by an audience member just as the show began. It is Geddy Lee himself who notices the fire and stops the show mid-song about 3 songs into the set, shouting "crew, crew, crew!" Members of the band's road crew spring into action "as if they had practiced for the moment" (Brown again), quickly rolling a cherry picker used for elevated spotlights into position as another crewman climbs the tower with fire extinguishers to put out the flames. The show resumes within minutes, and arena manager Keith Lewis is literally in tears afterward as he thanks the band and "their boys" for saving hundreds of lives. (1976 tour photo)

 

On October 5, 1775, General George Washington reports to the Continental Congress that Dr. Benjamin Church, surgeon general to the Continental Army, has been caught spying for the British. The evidence was a confiscated letter from Church to his mistress in which he divulged undisclosed information about Washington's army, and professed his allegiance to the king. Church was convicted of treason by a court martial and exiled to the West Indies, but his ship was lost at sea. In November, the Continental Congress would amend its "articles of war" to include the death penalty as a possible sentence for treason.


On October 5, 1986, Eugene Hasenfus is captured by troops of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua after the plane in which he is flying is shot down. Under questioning, Hasenfus confesses that he was flying military supplies into Nicaragua for use by the Contras, an anti-Sandinista force that had been created and funded by the United States. Most dramatically, he claimed that operation was really run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Congress had forbidden U.S. aid to the Contras the previous year. The Reagan Administration would deny Hasenfus' claims, but investigations by Congress and journalists would soon break what became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal: the illegal aid to the Contras was happening, funded by the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran (who agreed to help negotiate the release of U.S. hostages around the Middle East in the bargain). 11 members of the Reagan Administration would be convicted for their roles in the affair, including Lt. Col. Oliver North, a member of the National Security Council who was instrumental in setting up the operation.


On October 5, 1919, the Alfa Romeo race team finishes fourth in the Parma, Italy Hill Climb, with a new driver at the wheel. The new team member would race 47 times for Alfa Romeo, winning 13 races, but critics said the new driver, a mechanic and engineer by profession, didn't push his equipment hard enough to win. He soon retired and became head of Alfa Romeo's design team, but was later fired over his heavy-handed management of the department. He then formed his own company, intending to build cars, but World War II soon opened and the company retooled to build machine parts. Finally, in 1947, Enzo Ferrari's company begins turning out high performance automobiles, and enters the European race scene. By Enzo's death in 1988, the Ferrari brand had more than 4,000 race championships to its credit. (below: the 1949 Ferrari 166 MM that claimed the company's first win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans)

 

On October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt launch a two-front surprise attack on Israel. Armed with modern weapons supplied by the Soviet Union, their attack is initially successful, until the American-aided Israelis counterattacked and kicked ass. Mediators from the U.S. and U.S.S.R., led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, arrange a cease fire, but when the Israelis threaten to finish the job on surrounded Egyptian troops, the Russians begin talking about entering the fight directly. Over several days of "shuttle diplomacy" Kissinger flies back and forth between the conflicting nations until a peace accord is hammered out. By Oct. 25, the Yom Kippur War is over, with the Israelis holding land in both Syria and the Sinai they had not before.


On October 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stages a military review on the anniversary of the opening of the Yom Kippur War. During the parade, members of the Takfir Wal-Hajira, a terrorist group sponsored by Lybian leader Quadaffi, attack the presidential reviewing party. Disguised as Egyptian troops marching in the review, the group opens fire and throws grenades at the reviewing stand, killing Sadat and 10 other people. Vice President Hosni Mubarak, also on the reviewing stand, survives and launches an investigation that sees 25 people arrested. Four will be executed, 17 sent to prison for life.


On October 6, 1926, Babe Ruth becomes the first player to hit 3 home runs in a World Series game. Ruth's dingers propel the Yankees to a 10-5 game 4 win over the Cardinals, who eventually take the series in 7 games. The record has been duplicated only one time since then, by Reggie Jackson, also of the Yankees, in 1977.